""As a child, I was told when you die you go to heaven and heaven is where you eat cake all day and just get to hang out with your friends," said the 29-year-old Chinese American novelist, who was raised Christian, and publishes as R.F. Kuang. "And this really, really disturbed me because I think the monotony of that eternal existence was really frightening. It seems like there could be no stakes, nothing would be precious because there would be no conception of time.""
"Ruminating on what happens after you die inspired Kuang's newest book, "Katabasis." After the brilliant satire of publishing and social media in 2023's "Yellowface," Kuang returns to the fantasy genre. Not unlike 2022's "Babel," "Katabasis," out Tuesday, is a dark yet playful takeoff on academia - a setting the current Yale University graduate student knows well. It's been the talk of BookTok and on publications' most-anticipated book lists."
"Kuang, though, tries not to let pressure and high expectations get to her. "I think I always get a little bit nervous before a book comes out, but I think it's just not good to dwell on that because it's not productive at all," said Kuang, who already had several chapters of "Katabasis" written by the time "Yellowface" came out."
Rebecca F. Kuang is a Chinese American novelist who had six bestsellers before age 30 and was raised Christian. An image of heaven as endless cake and leisure terrified her because of the monotony and lack of stakes. Those anxieties inspired her new fantasy Katabasis, which returns to darkly playful explorations of academia after Yellowface. Katabasis follows Cambridge analytic magick doctoral student Alice, who enters purgatory via a pentagram to find a dead department chair and secure a recommendation. The book has generated BookTok buzz, occupies most-anticipated lists, and has Amazon-series plans with Kuang as a producer.
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